Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States
Laurel Oil & Gas Co. v. Morrison
Laurel Oil & Gas Co. v. Morrison, 212 U.S. 291 (1909)
- Type
- Opinion
- Court
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Jurisdiction
- Federal
- Date
- 1909-02-23
- Topic
- general
Mr. ChieeJustice Fuller, after making the foregoing.statement, delivered the opinion of the court. . By the act of Congress, approved March 1, 1889, c. 333, 25 Stat. 783, there was established a United States court for the Indian Territory. The act conferred no jurisdiction over felonies, but by the fifth suction exclusive original jurisdiction was conferred over all offenses against the laws of the United States committed within the Indian Territory, not punishable by death or by imprisonment at hard labor. Jurisdiction was conferred in all civil cases between citizens of the United States who are residents of the Indian Territory where the value of the thing in controversy amounted to one hundred dollars or more..
Citator
UpLaw has not yet analyzed Laurel Oil & Gas Co. v. Morrison. The absence of a flag is not a finding that it is good law.
- Cited by
- 13 opinions
LAUREL OIL CO.v. MORRISON,212 U.S. 291(1909)
29 S.Ct. 394
LAUREL OIL AND GAS COMPANYv. MORRISON.
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.
No. 198.
Argued October 14, 1908.
Decided February 23, 1909.
THIS case on the merits is reported insub nomine Morrison
v.Burnette, 154 F. 617. The able opinion of Sanborn,
J., speaking for the Circuit Court of Appeals, is preceded by the
following statement, which correctly sets forth the facts:
"Pursuant to an order of the United States Court in the
Western District of Indian Territory, which has the jurisdiction
of a Probate Court, a lease of 160 acres of mineral land which
had been allotted to Edith Durant, a minor Indian, was advertised
for sale on sealed bids by Monday Durant, her guardian, and on
the day of sale, March 5, 1906, the highest bonus bid for it was
$3,490, and this bid was made by Robert W. Morrison, Charles W.S.
Cobb, John E. McKinney, William J. Breene and Frank M. Breene,
who are now the appellants in this case, and will hereafter be so
styled. The Laurel Oil Gas Company, a corporation, one of the
appellees, bid at the same time at this sale $2,850 for this
lease. On March 7, 1906, the appellants deposited the $3,490 with
the court, and on March 9, 1906, the guardian executed the lease
of the land to the appellants and they applied to the court for
the confirmation of the sale and the approval of the lease. After
notice to all parties in interest and a hearing the court on June
11, 1906, `ordered, adjudged and decreed that the lease executed
by Monday Durant, guardian of Edith Durant, minor, on the ninth
day of March, 1906, (to the appellants,) be, and the same is
hereby in all things approved, ratified and confirmed.' On the
next day the Laurel Company, the unsuccessful bidder at the
former sale, made a motion for leave to bid again for the lease
of this land, and offered to bid a bonus of $8,000. Thereupon the
court set aside the order of June 11, 1906, for the sole reason
that a higher bonus could be obtained, and on June 14,
Page 293
1906, it sold a lease of 80 acres of this land on the same terms
as the former to the Galbraith Oil Gas Company for a bonus of
$16,800 and a lease of the other eighty acres on the same terms
to the Laurel Oil Gas Company for $2,000. The leases to these
parties were subsequently made by the guardian and the court
confirmed these sales and approved these leases. The appellants
then sued out a writ of error from the Court of Appeals of the
Indian Territory to reverse the order which set aside the decree
of confirmation of the sale and of approval of the lease to them,
and they also appealed from that order. The Court of Appeals of
the Indian Territory consolidated the two cases, heard them as an
appeal in equity and affirmed the order below because the court
was evenly divided in opinion. The appellants have brought the
latter judgment here by writ of error and also by appeal.
"Since the case came to this court the controversy over the
eighty acres leased to the Galbraith Oil Gas Company has been
settled and the only dispute remaining relates to the eighty
acres leased to the Laurel Oil Gas Company under the second
lease."
The question in the case was whether a court of equity during
the term at which the confirmation is made may lawfully avoid an
executed judicial sale which it has confirmed, on the sole ground
that a larger price may be obtained by a second sale, and was
answered in the negative, and the decree was that the decree of
the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory and
the decree of the United States court for the Western District of
the Indian Territory be reversed, and that "this cause be, and
the same is hereby, remanded to the United States Court for the
Western District of the Indian Territory, with directions to
confirm and enforce its order and decree which confirmed the sale
and approved the lease to the appellants [appellees here], and to
take any further proceedings necessary to that end." This decree
was made and entered July 10, 1907. An appeal was thereupon
allowed to this court, where the record was filed October 31 of
that year.
Page 294
By section five of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517,26 Stat. 826, as amended, appeals or writs of error might be taken from the District and Circuit Courts directly to this court in cases in which the jurisdiction of the court was in issue; of conviction of a capital crime; involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States; and in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority, was drawn in question.Page 295
By section six, the Circuit Courts of Appeals established by the act were invested with appellate jurisdiction in all other cases.
The thirteenth section read: "Appeals and writs of error may be taken and prosecuted from the decisions of the United States Court in the Indian Territory to the Supreme Court of the United States, or to the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Eighth Circuit, in the same manner and under the same regulations as from the Circuit or District Courts of the United States, under this act."
The act of March 1, 1895, c. 145,28 Stat. 693, provided for the appointment of additional judges of the United States court in the Indian Territory, and created a Court of Appeals with such superintending control over the courts in the Indian Territory as the Supreme Court of Arkansas possessed over the courts of that State by the laws thereof; and the act also provided, § 11, that "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said appellate court shall be allowed, and may be taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the Circuit Courts of the United States," which thus in terms deprived that court of jurisdiction of appeals from the Indian Territory trial court, under § 13 of the act of 1891.
InHarlessv.United States, 88 F. 97, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a careful opinion by District Judge Shiras, held that in the act of March 1, 1895, creating the Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory and giving it full jurisdiction, civil and criminal, the provision of § 11, that "writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of said appellate court shall be allowed and may be taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Judicial Circuit in the same manner and under the same regulations as appeals are taken from the Circuit Courts of the United States," conferred upon that court full appellate jurisdiction over the final decisions of the territorial appellate court, which jurisdiction was not in any way measured or limited by the jurisdiction on appealPage 296from or error to the District or Circuit Courts. And we concur in that view.
The rule was laid down by this court inBrownv.UnitedStates,171 U.S. 631, that where a statute provides for a writ of error to a specific court of appeals it must be regarded as a repeal of any previous statute which provided for a writ of error to another and different court, and that the decisions of the Court of Appeals of the United States for the Indian Territory are final, except so far as they are made subject to review by some express provision of law. It was furthermore there ruled that the Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory was analogous to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, and bore the same relation to the trial court in the Indian Territory as the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia bore to the trial court in the District, andEx parte Bigelow,113 U.S. 328;In reHeath,144 U.S. 92;Crossv.Burke,146 U.S. 82,84, were cited to the point that no appeal could be taken from or writ of error sued out to the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia where not specifically provided for.
Section 12 of the act of March 3, 1905,33 Stat. 1081, c. 1479, in force when the proceedings in the present case were had, provides:
"That hereafter all appeals and writs of error shall be taken from the United States courts in the Indian Territory to the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory, and from the United States Court of Appeals in the Indian Territory to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in the same manner as is now provided for in cases taken by appeal or writ of error from the Circuit Courts of the United States to the Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States for the Eighth Circuit."
We find no statute giving an appeal from that Circuit Court of Appeals to this court, and perceive no reason for concluding that Congress intended that parties in such cases should be entitled to three appeals.Appeal dismissed.Page 297